Poetry for Poetry Month

For me--as for many people, I'm sure--when the world gets to be too much, I turn to art and craft, to gardening, to everyday pleasures, to remind me of the joys of life. So today, to celebrate Poetry Month before the month is quite over, I'm posting a poem that was rejected in a submission to Atlanta Review. (The editor chose another, titled "Paradise," which was published in the Fall-Winter 2008 edition of the journal.)

Bird Watching

Here in the understory of the sky,
a neighbor’s leaf-blower whines at winter’s mess,
swooshing last year’s wardrobe into discarded piles
while red buds and Bradford pears strut
the street’s runways, their bright couture
radiant on leafless, anorexic branches.
Two blue birds scout a suburban yard,
a cardinal sings endlessly of its success,
the limits of its domesticity.
Persephone the cat dozes in a flowerpot,
her belly cooled by damp soil, black fur
absorbing heat; perhaps she dreams of dark
tunnels, soporific rivers, the furtive sounds of fear,
the smell of death.

High above a robin’s panicked “tut-tut-tut-tut-tut,”
the drum of a downy, a nuthatch’s nasal “he-uh, he-uh,”
the tight new leaf buds of sweetgum,
the drawn-out whinge of jet engines mark
a flight pattern of planes leaving Atlanta,
underbellies flashing silver or blue,
or—sharp eye—an elusive red tail, the flightless borne
on rigid wings, a seasonless migration.
Minutes apart, the bright birds trail sound--
crescendo, sforzato, decrescendo, rest.
In the brief silence a lullaby rises,
the mourning dove’s song, pianissimo, such a small
measure, bracketed by the tinnitus of machines,
calling us back to earth.

Anita